Joe Yerdon

If you don’t get your fill of outdoor hockey this year it’ll only be because you didn’t bother to try and find it at all. While the NHL will have the Winter Classic in Pittsburgh on January 1 and the Heritage Classic in Calgary on February 20th (with a tie-in game between the WHL Calgary…

It’s been quite the summer for Stanley Cup winning goaltender Antti Niemi, hasn’t it? First he helps Chicago win their first Cup since 1961, then he goes to arbitration with the team to help settle his restricted free agent contract status with them, then he wins a $2.75 million arbitration award only to see the…

Going into this summer’s free agency, there were some preconceived notions about what was going to happen. Many folks thought there could be a crush of action and free agents would go flying off the market like a hot toy at Christmas time. Others had it pegged that the elite talent would draw a lot…

While other teams have been nearly allergic to making moves this summer, Steve Yzerman and the Tampa Bay Lightning have been overly busy trying to right the ship in Florida. Today, the team announced the signing of former Islanders forward Sean Bergenheim to a one-year contract. Bergenheim is a player with some intrigue and a…

As this summer’s free agency trudges along, one name getting a lot of heat lately is defenseman Willie Mitchell. Mitchell spent the last four seasons with the Vancouver Canucks and before that he played with the Dallas Stars, Minnesota Wild, and the New Jersey Devils. He’s developed the reputation (and has had the game to…

If time doesn’t heal all wounds, we’ll soon have a case study to look back on if that’s the case. One thing we mentioned back when Detroit signed defenseman Ruslan Salei was how back in 1999, he and Mike Modano had a bit of a run in. It was opening night for the Stars and…

Tell me if you’ve heard this line this summer: Tampa Bay makes a deal to acquire someone from the Montreal Canadiens. This time around, the teams have made a minor-league trade of goaltenders as the Lightning have sent one-time prospect goalie Karri Ramo to the Canadiens in exchange for AHL all-star goalie Cedrick Desjardins.This deal…

You can eliminate one team off the potential list of those seeking to trade for Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Tomas Kaberle. It appears the Dallas Stars are not in pursuit of the Leafs star. Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News tells it like it is. Stars GM Joe Nieuwendyk said he has had trade…

There was a heaping dose of hockey nostalgia this weekend surrounding a team that hasn’t been in the NHL since 1997. For the fans of what once were the Hartford Whalers this weekend provided a time to come together to celebrate not just the past glory of the Whalers but also to praise one of…

If you haven’t gotten to following the New York Post’s Larry Brooks by now, it’s tough to say you’re keeping tabs on the NHL very closely. Ever since the NHL stepped up to challenge the NHLPA over Ilya Kovalchuk’s contract, Brooks has been the lone voice amongst team scribes to express what a dire situation…

If you’re waking up on this Sunday morning and felt that little twinge in your heart it could be from the wedding bells of yet another NHL celebrity couple. Free agent centerman Mike Comrie finally tied the knot with one-time Disney star and singer/actress Hillary Duff. Don’t you feel enlightened already? Just wait, your bizarro…

Brian Burke’s platter is going to be full today. With today being the last day he’s got to try and trade defenseman Tomas Kaberle, it’s looking like he’ll be going down to the wire at midnight tonight to try and send Kaberle packing elsewhere and free the Maple Leafs of his $4.25 million salary this…

Leave it to Patrick Kane to be perhaps the most fascinating NHL superstar of the summer. After scoring the Stanley Cup-winning goal for the Chicago Blackhawks, he’s been mesmerizing to watch in the public eye. From his on-ice interviews after winning the Cup, to his obviously intoxicated behavior throughout the Blackhawks Stanley Cup parade, to…

While things have calmed down on the Marc Savard trade market as far as we can tell, that doesn’t necessarily mean that all is well with Marc Savard. For the better part of the last two months, rumors have swirled around about the possibility of the Bruins dealing one of their top point producers over…

Our summer of free agency started and still continues with the Ilya Kovalchuk saga, but in the meantime, for just this weekend, we’ve got the Tomas Kaberle saga and tomorrow could see things come to a head with he and the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Leafs have until midnight tomorrow to work a trade for…

It’s pretty amazing that in a what’s been a busy summer (sarcasm alert!) we’ve been able to squeeze in talk about a guy who last played in the NHL back in 2007-2008, but here we are in the summer of 2010 and former Avalanche/Flyer/Predator Peter Forsberg keeps finding a way to grab some headlines. While…

We just knew that Patrick Kane’s day with the Cup in Buffalo was going to be interesting, but we didn’t expect that it would turn into a high-wire act. As Kane took the Cup around his home town today, one stop he made was to visit with the fire department in Buffalo who took Kane…

“I went to the fights and a hockey game broke out.” We’ve all heard the that tired old line before, but you never hear it said about baseball and with good reason: baseball fights stink. When the Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals decided to play the 40-man feud the other night in Cincy, it…

The death of former enforcer extraordinaire Bob Probert saddened and surprised many an NHL fan. What fans may not have known is that the former Red Wings and Blackhawks pugilist was working on writing a book to talk about his days in the NHL. Today, Probert’s family announced that they will go ahead with the…

When you think of teams ripe with goaltending talent, we’re betting the Florida Panthers don’t immediately come to mind. They should though. Sure you know about the league’s most underrated goalie Tomas Vokoun and his backup Scott Clemmensen would be recalled by Devils and Boston College fans alike. What you don’t know is that their…

The recent fun with the drama surrounding Eric Belanger’s impending re-signing with the Washington Capitals is that it’s created the more intriguing stir about what move the Capitals are going to make to help Belanger better fit into the fold. While initial rumor mongering suggested that Tomas Fleischmann could be the guy heading out of…

One of the unfortunate side effects of the summer starting to get a bit long for hockey fans is that while there’s no major news to keep us satiated, it makes many fans more open and susceptible to overreacting to any and all trade and signing rumors that appear on the Internet. With the use…

This off-season’s free agent market, in case you haven’t noticed, hasn’t been all that friendly to those veterans seeking new employment in the NHL. Both superstars and role players alike are finding out that the job market in the NHL is almost as difficult as the job market is for regular Americans and Canadians alike.…

For the duration of the summer while each of the Chicago Blackhawks got their day with the Cup, I’m not sure there was a more highly anticipated day than the one that’s upon us now. Tomorrow is Patrick Kane’s day with the Cup. John Vogl of the Buffalo News has the potentially hilarious task of following…

The bidding for the Dallas Stars is apparently back to just two interested parties. While we reported a while back that News Corp., the company that owns Fox Broadcasting, was interested in purchasing the Dallas Stars, it turns out things have changed. Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News breaks the news on Fox stepping…